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Another way to think about font-size control

Matt and Todd posted to ciwas

Where it started

in article
mmcirvin-0910002045540001@ppp0b158.std.com, Matt McIrvin at
mmcirvin@world.std.com wrote on 10/9/00 5:45 PM:

Hmm… your users are upset that their own default text
size is too large? I think you're sunk, since any attempt to
change this is going to bother somebody else. Basically, the
users are demanding that you read their minds -- they want the
text to look a certain way, but aren't willing to change a
setting in order to make that happen.

Unfortunately, I think that this is a very common occurrence,
possibly because people have gotten used to the model of Web
content as a TV-like broadcast that they passively consume.

If it looks bad, there must be something wrong with the
broadcast.
» » »

in article
B60800C6.1A3B5%fahrner@pobox.com, Todd Fahrner at
fahrner@pobox.com wrote on 10/9/00 11:09 PM:

A descriptive analogy

This is KCSS Television, how may we help you?

Could you please turn the volume down? Your show is too loud.

[ pause ]

Er, have you tried the volume control on your television
set?

[ sigh ] Next you'll start with PAL and SECAM
and all that mumbo-jumbo. Just turn the volume down please. Not
everybody has the time to fiddle with obscure dials on
television sets. I don't work in the industry, you know.

Well, sir, if we were to cut our audio transmission
levels, all those people who have set the volume to their
liking would have to turn the volume up.

Serves those pedantic buffoons right for messing with the
factory settings in the first place, right?

Sir, the point is that not everybody wants the same
volume, and there isn't really any standard setting anyway,
what with different set designs, seating distances, room sizes
and acoustic properties. That's why it's your job, and not
ours, to adjust the volume to your liking.

O really? Look, Mr. Smarty Pants, my uncle is a Senior
Production Designer for your parent network -- he works very
hard -- and if he hears that KCSS is letting ordinary untrained
viewers set the volume of his shows, you'll be hearing from
their lawyers.

Now for the last time…

We'll get right on it, sir!

You get the idea?

Now here's the rub:

This sort of insanity is already rampant.

The designer/builders behind the large majority of page views
have long since kowtowed to such absurd demands from their
employers, clients, and end users. Which means that it is now
not quite so meaningful for users to set their preferred font
size as the default: they'll see it so rarely on mainstream
pages.

What they need to do is pick something a few steps larger: then
they'll see their real favorite more often. This is of course a
devolutionary cycle; the best we can hope for is a cataclysm --
something like an overwhelmingly popular browser with a
powerful, prominent, fun font-size or page
zooming UI, or a cheap wave of ultra-high res displays -- such
that the designers can assert, confident that they will be
believed.

Median font size is not my job -- all I handle are intervalic
proportions.

I think the primeval notion that a user can have one preferred
font size for all Web pages is badly out of date, recalling a
time before Web designers (called "information providers" in
the early days) could even dream of doing layout, specifying
different fonts, colors, leading, etc.

All of these things have a huge influence on what the most
appropriate font size might be. A smallish, well-designed font
set in narrow columns, with plenty of leading (line-height) and
tonal contrast between fore- and back-ground, will be much more
readable than a much larger, less well-designed font set in
very long lines with little interlinear space, blue on deep
red.

You will be able to read the former faster than the latter at a
constant strain.

Faster (more readable) isn't necessarily better, though. I
fantasize about rolling all these factors up into some sort of
constant of readability algorithm, such that authors could
simply specify a scalar value appropriate to the subject matter
and typical sentence structure. The formatting would then adapt
to the user's needs, the available resources, and the nature of
the material.

Light material, in choppy journalistic style, is generally
meant to be read very quickly. You're not going to miss any
fine literary shadings if you skim. This accounts for the
exceptionally short lines of newspaper columns.

More thoughtful, complex material, meant to be read more
slowly, gets longer lines: the op-ed page essay lines are
typically 2-3 times as wide as the disaster report columns. And
really ponderous academic or legal material, which must be read
slowly, typically gets the longest lines of all.